That didn’t stop him from taking Skull along, just to impress her.
They got down to the ground floor, where they headed to the far wall, on the opposite side from the backup infirmary. Skull took out his keycard and slipped it into a crack in the wall. There was no sound as the hidden camera switched on for the guard to see their faces and let them in. The wall slid aside and closed behind them as they descended a narrow set of stairs.
Patrick was on guard duty, his face pale in the bright light. He looked up from the stack of papers before him, dark circles under his eyes.
“College stuff?” Peter asked, crossing the small room.
“Yeah.” Patrick made a face, then pointed at the computer screen. “She looks nervous.”
“Still pacing?”
“Yep.”
Peter nodded, entering a code into the electronic lock. The three-inch-thick steel door slid aside, revealing a long corridor and six cells on each side. The lights overhead brightened as he stepped in.
Six Commandos and a Beast followed him and Skull with their eyes as they walked down the corridor to the cell in the corner. Peter had put Victoria in one of the two nicer cells, which included luxuries like a padded bunk, a small sink, and a white plastic screen in front of the toilet. Two cameras perched under the ceiling, their way of keeping an eye on the prisoners without risking their guards, should anything go wrong.
Victoria halted mid-step when she saw Peter. Her eyes grew two times bigger when Skull strolled into view. He stopped behind Peter’s shoulder, arms crossed, and Victoria had to crane her head back to stare at him, even with the distance between them.
Skull studied her with his heavy, unblinking gaze, and Peter had to hold back a smile, knowing what that gaze did to people.
“Surprised?” Peter said, putting on a polite smile. “He was in your apartment, too. You just didn’t see him.”
She snorted, fixing her angry stare on Peter. “Impossible. Don’t take me for a fool, Ghost.”
So much for rattling her cage. “My name’s Peter,” he said, stepping closer to the iron bars. “And if you want to keep this nice cell, you’d better play nice. After all, you’ll be spending the rest of your life here.”
Her face gave away her rising anger, but she stuck her chin out all the same. “You think I care where you put me? I’m already as good as dead.”
“Not if you give us what we need.”
“What you need,” she hissed, “is to be exterminated, like the vermin you are.” She bit her lip, as if she hadn’t meant to say anything, and backed away from the bars.
“This is worse than I thought,” Peter muttered, both to Skull and himself. He switched topics, adopting a hard tone, “What did you do to our men?”
“They’re dead,” she spat.
Peter didn’t believe it for a second.
“What are you trying to do? What’s with the experiments?”
Silence.
“Who’s sponsoring your psycho mission?”
More silence.
“Who taught you that we’re the bad guys, Victoria? Why do you hate us? Is it because of your husband?”
Her eyes flashed—and looked away. “You know nothing about me.”
“No, and I’m trying to understand. What made someone like you, a distinguished military officer, go off the grid and join some inter-species war and slaughter innocent girls as if they were lab rats.” Peter breathed out, looking at her sneering face, pushing down his anger.
“I won’t tell you anything. You’re wasting your time. I’ve got nothing to lose here.”
His patience snapped. He might as well say what he was thinking. “You look at us like we’re monsters. But we don’t kill people here, and don’t bleed them dry—you do.”
He walked away, not expecting a reply, and kept walking until he realized he was in the waiting room. Luke stared at him, eyebrows high.
Peter stalked off through the office door. A second later, Skull followed him inside.
“You were right,” the giant said. “About bleeding them, you were right. Did you see it?”
Peter nodded, rubbing a hand over his face. Victoria had flinched when he said that.
Without a word, he went into his living room and grabbed a bottle of scotch and three glasses. Skull raised a scarred brow at the sight.
“Really? She got under your skin like that?” he asked, while Peter put the glasses on the conference table and poured the liquor. Luke stuck his head inside, his eyes locking on the bottle.
“She has a way,” Peter said through his teeth, unsure how to continue. How to say it while keeping his emotions bottled up. “Reminds me of someone.”
“Pain?”
The reply was so quick, so sudden, it gave Peter pause. He looked up at Skull, finding a rueful smile on his face.
“It’s the eyes,” Skull said. “And the attitude.”
Peter put the bottle down and braced both hands on the table, expelling a shaky breath. He’d forbidden himself to even think about it, to say in his head that he might still lose Pain, thanks to the Commandos. Because then no number of steel doors would keep Victoria safe.
But he could only keep things buried for so long, and Skull was right, there really was something similar in the way Victoria and Pain behaved, something so basic it pulled at all the wrong strings in him.
He took a deep breath to keep himself from grabbing the bottle and smashing it against a wall.
“She won’t tell us anything,” he said, straightening up.
Luke and Skull reached for their glasses and downed them in a second. Peter stared at his, suddenly sick to the core.
“Maybe we won’t need it,” Luke
